THE MAN CAVE

What to Expect after Your First Manscaping Hair Regrowth

Manscaping is an important adventure. The first experience is a true right of passage for the modern man, but unlike such passages of the distant past, you don’t have to face this experience blind. We live in the information age, after all, so why not get a clear idea of what you should expect before you touch blade to hair? There’s a lot that can happen in a manscaping session, but the one part most guys overlook is the process of regrowth. It’s actually more important than the act of grooming, and you need to know a few things before you unwittingly torture yourself with an ill-advised manscaping debacle.

After a Trim

First, we have to note that regrowth is different depending on how the hair is removed. Trimming and shaving are substantially different animals, so we’ll discuss them separately. When it comes to trimming, the experience of regrowth will depend on how short you take the hair. If you use a trimmer like The Lawn Mower 2.0, you can basically get as close as a shave. With that in mind, here’s the rule of thumb for trimming.

There are three lengths you need to consider and how it will impact regrowth. The first length we can call post-bristle. Basically, you’re trimming the hair, but you’re leaving it long enough that it doesn’t get bristly. Using the longer trim guards on your trimmer can usually get you this length. If you compare it to a haircut, this is where the barber takes a little off the top with the scissors. The texture of the hair doesn’t change. In manscaping, this will have the lowest impact on skin and hair health. You really won’t notice regrowth except that eventually the body hair will be long enough to annoy you.

The next length sits somewhere between that bristly stage and stubble. Using our haircut analogy, this is where the barber uses the trimmer at the base of your head. The hair is short enough to bristle, and the texture changes. This has a medium impact on the skin and hair health, and it’s something you want to really consider when it comes to your balls and your ass.

The third length is stubble. Some trims can get close enough that the hair is shorter than stubble, but you can trust it to grow to that stubble length pretty quickly. This length has the most impact on skin and hair health, and when you take hair this low on the wrong parts of your body, you’re going to suffer a little.

So, when you trim, you want to think about regrowth. On sensitive body parts, like the ball sack, fighting with stubble and bristling hair is a nightmare. Your options are to either stay long enough to dodge the problem or trim and shave diligently enough to prevent stubbly regrowth.

After a Shave

With shaving, we’re a lot less worried about length. For the most part, you can have one of two experiences. You can shave with the grain or you can go against it. Going against the grain will make the skin feel smoother and the shave closer immediately after finishing, but it comes at a price. Shaving against the grain irritates the skin so much more. It also cuts the hairs at an angle, and that increases the likelihood of ingrown hairs during regrowth. Don’t shave against the grain.

With that covered, there are three components of regrowth after a shave. We’re going to emphasize the balls here, but it’s just the extreme example. Shaving any part of your body faces the same issues.

Skin

The Plow is one of the best body shavers ever designed. Even with this elite equipment, shaving will irritate your skin. It’s the price we pay. Skin irritation is going to go through a few phases after a shave, and tending to your face has prepared you for them. The first phase is immediate irritation. The act of shaving literally scrapes the outermost defenses of your skin away. This causes dryness, redness and itching. Sometimes it even burns (which usually means you need to replace your blade). Untreated, it typically takes skin a few hours to a few days to recover from a shave.

Before that finishes, you’ll hit the second phase. This is when the hair pushes back through the surface of the skin. It usually comes with red bumps, itchiness and its own brand of irritation. The third phase occurs when the hair is long enough to scratch skin it contacts. This is particularly noticeable between your legs. That skin already rubs together. When you add stubble to the equation, it really does feel like sandpaper.

After Proper Care

No matter how you groom your body hair, there are negative consequences that come paired with the massive benefits. The key to a happy life is to know how to mitigate the bad and keep the good. With manscaping, what you do after you groom is so much more important to the process.

Cleanliness

The first and most important step to reducing irritation and problems associated with trimming and shaving is to keep things clean. Infections (whether bacterial or fungal) are the worst thing that can go wrong. They’re also easy to avoid. You should clean your tools thoroughly after every grooming session. More importantly, you should clean yourself after every session. The easiest way to make it routine is to groom before you shower. Once you’re done, hop in a warm shower and cleanse your body. You want to pay extra attention to the skin you just irritated with the blades. Gently exfoliate with Crop Cleanser for the best results. It will remove irritating hair clippings, wash away microbes, rehydrate the skin, and help restore the acid mantle that you just scraped away.

One other tip for cleanliness is to make use of the Magic Mat. It’s a disposable mat that can collect all of your hair clippings and make clean up a snap.

Restoration

If you stop after the shower, you’ll be much better off, but there are steps you can take to improve your skin and hair health beyond a simple shower. In fact, there are two easy steps that will get you amazing results with practically no effort.

The first step is to use ball deodorant. If you’ve never tried one, you can already imagine how that will be good for your social life. When your ball deodorant is Crop Preserver, the benefits run much deeper. This is a ball deodorant that uses a special formula to help restore the pH of your skin after a shave. It also has a talc-like base that keeps your skin cool and hydrated without turning swampy. Best of all, it reduces friction as you go about your daily life. That’s nice in general, but when your skin is still sensitive from grooming, it’s the extra mile that helps you recover as quickly as possible.

The second step is to use aftershave. No, don’t use the face stuff on your junk. That’s going to burn. Instead, you can get an aftershave that is intended for use downstairs. Technically Crop Reviver is a lot more than an aftershave, but it doesn’t hurt to think of it in those terms. Crop Reviver is a revitalizing mist that you can spritze under your shorts any time you need a pick me up. We recommend a dose every time you use your ball deodorant, but if you’re ever having a rough day, the formula is gentle enough that you can use as many refreshers as you deem necessary.

You can see why it’s important to manage regrowth after you manscape. When you aren’t used to the process, it can feel like a list of chores, but if you invest in the Perfect Package 2.0, it makes everything pretty easy. Everything you need is in one convenient bag, and applying your restorative products really takes no effort at all. When you’re ready to get smart about male grooming, you can find all of the products mentioned here at Manscaped.com.